PayPal Reaches 100 million Accounts
PayPal announced this week that it has surpassed 100 million accounts across 55 markets worldwide.
PayPal is popular with online buyers and merchants alike. Shoppers prefer PayPal to send money, because it is fast and easy to use, and their financial information is protected and never shared with merchants or recipients. PayPal is also used by millions of online merchants, including leading e-commerce sites around the world.
PayPal began offering its service in 1999, ending that year with 12,000 accounts and $235,000 in total payment volume. In 2005, PayPal processed more than $27 billion in total payment volume and exceeded $1 billion in revenue. The company has localized services in 14 countries and supports payments in seven currencies — U.S. Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan.
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Editorial: whatever many naysayers say, PayPal is popular and more importantly is trusted. It is being currently used by many to conduct business online - and the eBook industry simply loves PayPal (my research showed almost 90% of those selling eBooks are using PayPal).
What’s interesting is that digging deeper into PayPal over the past month, I find that it has quite powerful features for merchants and I sense that many are not using it to it’s fullest potential. Hence, watch out for an upcoming, and continuing, tutorial/resource section on PayPal - it’s around 60% completed.
Other Websites: PayPal Alternative for ACH & Credit Card Payment Processing & Recurring Billing PaySimple puts customer service first–we offer low-cost ACH (e-check) & credit card payment processing, online bill pay & recurring billing functions
10 Responses to “PayPal Reaches 100 million Accounts”
By John Evans (Syntagma) on Feb 16, 2006 | Reply
I think PayPal is a great idea, but they’re getting oodles of flak in the British press right now. It seems many sellers on eBay are being told that they sent goods to addresses different from that on the purchase credit card — something they couldn’t possibly know. PayPal is claiming back the money they received, even scooping it out of their bank accounts by direct debit. This seems grotesquely unfair.
Jeremy Wright’s also got a moan that eBay/PayPal is chasing him for a few dollars when he does masses of business with them. Sounds like they’re getting paranoid about fraud. Maybe the new Gbuy from Google isn’t helping either.
By Martin Neumann on Feb 16, 2006 | Reply
John … yeah, I never liked the eBay/PayPal matchup. I thought they should have done a partnership of some sort rather than eBay buying them out - I’m not that fond of eBay (lots of bad experiences buying and selling a year or so back and I’ve never been back).
A few years back (pre-eBay) Paypal was getting bad press but they seemed to get better and were really going forward and then eBay got them.
I guess the physical goods being sent is not really in my area of interest (as it’s all about digital products for us - and there’s quite good measures in place for that) … although anything that reflects badly on the PayPal brand is not good for the broader mainstream.
There lots of other good PayPal-like services out there that I’m going to cover - but they have very little brand recognition yet and in online payments it’s all about trust and branding.
By Martin Neumann on Feb 16, 2006 | Reply
John … sorry, forgot to have a say on Jeremy’s issues.
Yeah, that was pretty silly of them - more so that it was only 2 weeks overdue. I’m watching GBuy very, very closely - but there’s little coming out yet.
By Vision on Feb 18, 2006 | Reply
Martin,
On this subject I would really like to comment and supply some insight.
When I first started I used PayPal to accept online payments for my online freagrance store, however shortly after I began to resell other products on EBAY I discovered many setbacks.Although they will continue to state that they have way of viewing one anothers files is false. They do!
What I once read about PayPal happened to me. PayPal is not a BANK. They will advise you of this fact once you question why they are able to hold your money(freeze your account)for 180 days. They hold all monies in their a share type of stock.
They will close your account or suspend it for any given reason, and advise you that you should get a suppeona in order to find out the reason why.
My greatest advise for anyone that has no choice yet but to use PayPal is:
1.) Always withdraw any funds you collect immediately. Trust me, when your funds are high enough, a freeze will take place for 180, so that they may INVESTIGATE any suspicious activity. An Activity they will not tell you about. I beleive the money grows interest during the time and anyone can lose it due to the fact it is not BACKED UP FDIC.
2.) When asked to supply 2 different accounts in order to verify your identity. I SUGGEST to open 2 separate accounts that do not involve your Home and Personal Funds set them aside for PayPal use only. They have been known to withdraw monies from your accounts, because their TERMS OF SERVICE allows them to once you agree to the terms.
3.) If they ever freeze your account. Supply what they ask. I have supplied the origianl receipts to all the computers, handbags and perfumes I sold.
I supplied the phone numbers to the wholesalers and redeipts of my purchases of products I sold and verified the authenticity of my designer handbags. GUESS WHAT! They will require your personal info, such as more accounts, bills, statements and more.
I do not believe that your personal information should not be supplied to anyone unless the government requests it.
PayPal states its for your protection, but I do not thinks so when they can just legally hold thousands of your dollars in funds.
Some may like StormPay and some may not, however they are very professional. They supply a FREE auction such as eBay and no hassels.
They also verify your identity through legal and commen sense ways. For example they will call your phone number, the bank you use and will also send a PIN to your address, such as GOOGLE ADSENSE WILL DO.
I am sorry this is long however I feel others should be aware. Like I said, I once decided to use PayPal because their name was recognized and many seemed to have use it, but I ignored all the stories I cam e accross, thinking it would never happen to me. IT DID.
Read some Horror Stories: http://paypalsucks.com
I use Stormpay and will finally use a real merchant account in the future, where all monies are backed into my business account that is backed up.
Clickbank and StormPay are great for Downloadable products. They are trusted and used mostly by those that sell downladable products.
Susan
By Vision on Feb 18, 2006 | Reply
Sorry about my editorial errors. I ddn’t proof read. Bad for writers.
Susan =:)
By Renee on Feb 19, 2006 | Reply
Personally, I’ve not had these problems with Paypal, and my account balance has reached some pretty high numbers (when I sold things on eBay). Your suggestion about Stormpay really doesn’t hold water if you know what I know. They have some VERY shady dealings, and I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.
I prefer Paypal because they are way more professional, and have a great system set up. If you follow their rules, you can’t really get in trouble.
By Martin Neumann on Feb 19, 2006 | Reply
Vision … thanks for the insight.
Not a problem about the long coment - a comment that goes into depth such as this I appreciate as it gives me a clearer picutre of issues. (and don’t worry about the proof reading - think of commenting here as like a conversation with friends, no need for perfection)
I’ve heard of PayPal freezing your money for long periods with little or no communcation or warning - the common denomiator for me seems to be eBay - and as I said before I dislike eBay. Still, it is worrying.
Personally, last year I did 712 transactions over PayPal and only had 8 issues. So I haven’t experienced any dramas such as this - but then seeing all those “suck” sites and complaints at forums there must be something there.
Being a true journalists (which I am/was) maybe I’ll do an investigative piece on this issue. Might take a few months to get all the details together but I will do it.
StormPay, ha. I have StormPay on my list of online payment services to look at - and your strong recommendation puts them on top of my list of reviewing.
Thanks for the insight, Vision.
By Martin Neumann on Feb 19, 2006 | Reply
Hi Renee,
I’m like you - never had a problem with PayPal, personally.
But now I’m confused :-) one person says PayPal is dodgy and StormPay is the goods - and another says StormPay is dodgy and PayPal is good. Phew!
I’ve got a lot of research to do on this. :-)
Both Vision and Renee, if you like, email me - martin at epublishingdaily.com - and let me know your experiences with both PayPal and StormPay - it’ll give me a headstart in researching the issue.
By John Evans (Syntagma) on Feb 19, 2006 | Reply
Vision,
Thanks for the information. I must say I’ve been worried by all the adverse press coverage of PayPal here in England.
I don’t use eBay, though, and as Martin said, it seems to be the weak link there. I’ve only ever used it to receive payments and pay associates I work with worldwide. There hasn’t been a problem with that. But I’ll think about what you say.
I wonder what Google’s Gbuy will be like?
By Vision on Feb 19, 2006 | Reply
Renee,
Due to my MONEY, believe me all rules were followed. When a company can hold your money for 180 days and refuse to give you a reason besides read their ‘TOS’ the word PROFESSIONAL does not apply. My question to you would be: Do you use StormPay? Since I have used both from the start (2 years now- currently only StormPay), I can say my words can tread water.
I understand that you may not have been affected by PayPal, however I have and many many others. I agree that PayPal may have many clients worldwide, but the word PROFESSIONAL is not on their list of positive attributes.
When you really need them, you basically have to search the net to find a phone number. The responce emails are standard, which you can not reply to any of them. PayPal was forced IN COURT to release a contact phone number. They have had many many lawsuits.
I may not have the credentials you are looking for, however the BBB does.
STORMPAY, has worked just fine for me and they have many programs out there that are free for their members. Personally the only complaints I have heard about StormPay is how they decided to stop all HYIP activities through them, which did affect many people involved. The program was found by StormPay to be illegal.
John,
I have heard some talk about PayPal in Europe, but honestly I have not read any of the stories as of yet. I believe that everyone has the right to choose which company they should deal with, but the keyword is “discretion”.
There are so many horror stories that have been posted on the Internet concerning PayPal. I find it hard to believe that they can all be so similar and not have any truth to them.
I personally do not like the fact how eBay and PayPal do business together. Although they are 1 in the same, each will charge you fees. If finally they decided to tell everyone now, they should have cut down on the fees.
The best bet is to use a real merchant account, but for many a payment gateway such as PayPal, StormPay and eGold are what newbies use, as I once had to make the same choices.
Any company will have some negative feedback, but for the amount PayPal has had versus StormPay. Attention should be paid. My expereience comes from using both, and believe me if StormPay is found to play around with my money, then that will be a different story. As of today, I am satisfied with StormPay, however any person who has instincts will always keep one eye open regardless of the situation.
Thanks Renee and John for your commments. I learn through discussions as this.